This invention relates to a method of disinfecting dental impressions and to a preferred apparatus for carrying out the method.
In order to prevent the transmission of diseases from dental patients to their dentists and the dentists' assistants and technicans, time consuming and costly procedures have been followed to disinfect all the tools and materials with which the patients come in contact, particularly the tools and materials having the patients' blood and saliva on them which can carry high concentrations of potentially infective viruses and bacteria. The principal means for disinfecting dental tools and materials have been steam autoclaves, ovens, ethylene oxide gas, boiling water and chemical disinfectants, such as chlorine solutions, formaldehyde, glutaraldehyde and iodophors.
However, problems have been encountered in disinfecting dental impressions. Generally, dental impressions have first been rinsed with water to remove the patients' blood and saliva, and then, they have been disinfected with chemical agents which will not react with the plastic impression materials utilized or the plastic or metal trays which hold the impression materials. However, chemical disinfectants have tended to distort, crack and/or weaken the surfaces of impression materials when the impression materials have been exposed for too long a time to the disinfectants. As a result, the selection of the disinfectant chemicals and the length of time that the impression materials are exposed to the disinfectant chemicals have had to be closely controlled to avoid damaging the impression materials.
There has been a need, therefore, for a way of routinely disinfecting dental impressions in a simple and low cost manner that does not risk damaging the impression materials.